For that last hour he remained on tenterhooks, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. At eight o’clock, the usual goodnights were said and the agency was locked up till Monday. A quarter of an hour later, hardly conscious of what he ate, he was having his dinner at the Grande Bretagne. During it, his mind was busily speculating on the best time at which to make his attempt. The classic choice seemed to be in the small hours of the morning, but against that was the fact that the streets would be almost empty; so it was much more likely that, if a policeman happened to spot anyone slipping into a cul-de-sac, he would come along to investigate. On the other hand, the majority of Athenians were very averse to going to bed early. At any time up till one o’clock, someone living in the cul-de-sac might come home from a party, the last house at one of the cinemas, or even from sitting talking with friends in a café.
While pondering this dilemma, it suddenly struck Robbie that the present was the perfect hour. There would still be plenty of people in the streets, but the inhabitants of the courtyard would either have already gone out or be occupied at home, eating their dinners. Pushing aside his compòte of mandarines, he hurried from the restaurant.
The rain had stopped and it was a warm evening so, without bothering to get a hat or coat, he walked quickly round to the agency. The courtyard was deserted. There were lights in the ground-floor windows of one of the houses and in several of the upper windows round the well, but all of them had their curtains drawn. After a quick look round, he went to the window of Krajcir’s office. It lay at right angles to the agency’s other three windows, as it was round a corner; so, while getting in through it, he could not be seen by anyone approaching from the street. For an illegal entry, things could not have been more propitious. Then, just as he was about to stretch out his hand to the broken pane, he was brought up short by a shattering thought. In his hurry, he had forgotten to collect his torch.
To switch on the light when he got into Krajcir’s office would be asking for trouble. Any of the neighbours, seeing a light there at that unusual hour, would be certain to become suspicious, see him through the window and, if they noticed that the door was still padlocked, send for the police. Yet without a light, how was he to read the papers he hoped to find in Krajcir’s desk?
He had on him a pocket lighter. As long as he held it on, it would serve for him to read by; but he was hoping to copy down any particulars, so that he would not have to trust to memory, and he could not very well do that with only one hand. For a moment he stood there, a prey to awful indecision. Then he decided that, without a torch, it would take him three times as long to do the job, and that even then he might bungle it. Turning, he left the courtyard, at something between a walk and a run.
Once out in the street, he did run most of the way to the Grande Bretagne and back. To go up in the lift there and get his torch took him only three minutes, so he was away altogether for not much more than ten. The church clocks had not yet chimed nine and, to his immense relief, the situation in the courtyard had not changed. It was still deserted, and the curtains remained drawn across the lighted windows.
Panting, and trembling a little, he again stepped up to the window of Krajcir’s office. With his forefinger he prodded the smallest triangle of glass in the cracked pane. It fell inward, making only a tiny tinkle. Now that he could use a thumb and finger, it was easy to wriggle the other pieces until they became free, and one by one he laid them silently on the ground. As he pushed his arm through the now empty space, three of the big reference books on the shelf inside fell to the floor with a muffled thump. A moment later, his upthrust fingers found the catch and pressed it back. Withdrawing his arm, he tried to lever up the lower section of the window. To his dismay, it would not budge. He had overlooked the fact that it was only the upper section that was opened every day; the lower one had probably not been opened for years. It was stuck fast.
Almost crying with frustration, he stepped back and stared at it. To have to abandon his venture now would be the most bitter pill. But perhaps he could get in through the top half of the window. He was quite tall enough to get a good grip on it when it was lowered, but it had one row of panes less than the lower section, so that, even when opened to its fullest extent, it would be a tight squeeze to get his big chest and shoulders through. In any case, there was no alternative to going in head first, so how, without risking a nasty injury, could he get down to the floor? Then, say he got stuck? The thought that he might be found there hours later, with his head and arms inside and his feet still kicking outside, was an appalling one. It would mean, too, that when he was rescued, he would be ignominiously marched off to the police station. He dared not risk it.
With a little sob of despair, he turned away and stumbled round the corner. A sudden gust of wind came down the passage from the street, and he heard a light rustle. Looking up, he found himself facing the gnarled olive tree. Instantly and without question, he accepted the sound as Athene rebuking him for his cowardice.
Turning, he strode back to the window, thrust his arm in, pulled down the upper part and took a firm grip of it with both hands. One spring and his head and shoulders were through the gap. With an awkward push, he wriggled his chest over the sash. Next moment, his arms were flailing helplessly and his hands clutching empty air. There was nothing for it now but to go on wriggling until the bulk of his body was through. The weight of it brought up his feet with a sudden jerk. With difficulty he suppressed a cry of fear, and came down with a hideous crash on the floor.
By twisting as he fell, he managed to save his head, but from the sudden pain that shot through his left thumb and shoulder, he feared he had broken the one and dislocated the other. With a groan, he picked himself up. Although his thumb and shoulder continued to hurt considerably, he found that he could still move both freely; so he concluded that neither had sustained serious damage.
As soon as he had got his breath back, he shut the window and replaced the fallen reference books on the sill. Taking out his torch, he pressed the switch, praying that the bulb had not been broken by his fall. It had not, and a bright beam from it clove the almost total darkness. As chance would have it, the beam was aimed directly on Krajcir’s safe. Robbie groaned again. What a fool he had been. He had forgotten all about the safe and, naturally, Krajcir would have locked up in it such important documents as those referring to the secret project in which the Czechs were engaged. As he could not possibly open the safe, he had taken this big risk and had hurt himself badly all for nothing.
Half-heartedly, he turned the torch on to Krajcir’s desk. It offered no consolation, as there was not even a pad with scribbled notes on it. He pulled open the centre drawer. Inside, there was a blue folder containing only a few sheets of paper. One glance at the top one, and Robbie’s full mouth suddenly broke into a rapturous smile. Here, after all, was the very thing he was after. Evidently, Krajcir could not be in the full confidence of his Legation. He could not have realised the importance of keeping secret the reservations Barak had instructed him to make, otherwise he would have locked up the folder.
Sitting down in Krajcir’s swivel chair, Robbie laid his torch on the desk, and masked its light so that no more than a glow from it could be seen through the window. Taking a piece of letter paper from the rack and one of the pencils from a nearby holder, he began to copy, in his laborious hand, the particulars listed on the papers in the folder.
At a glance, he saw that in every case a house was to be rented that would accommodate eleven people; but sometimes accommodation in hotels was also required, although for two nights only, and in each of these places on different dates, beginning at Patras on March 31st and ending at Lesbos on April 12th. The bookings at hotels suggested that in some places the houses were not easily accessible from the ports. Where hotel accommodation was required, it was to be, in every case, first class for three and third class for eight. All arrangements and accounts were to be settled by the agency. The places at which either houses or bookings
were requited were Patras, Corinth, Pirgos, Kalamai, Kithira, Heraklion in Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Samnos, Chios and Lesbos.
Robbie’s geography, if decidedly sketchy about other parts of the world, was hard to fault on the ancient world, and he at once realised that these ports and islands formed a chain from western Greece right round the Peloponnesus and up the coast of Turkey. The fact that the hotel bookings, starting at Patras on March 31st, were for progressive dates, confirmed his idea that the Bratislava was making a trip right round Greece, dropping off groups of her passengers as she went.
He was only half-way through copying the list when he was startled by a sudden noise. It came from the outer office. There had been a faint clang of metal, then the sound of a door being, slammed. It could only be the door to the street. Next moment, faint but clear, he heard Krajcir’s voice: ‘Everything’s ready for you, so it won’t take long.’
Robbie’s hands suddenly became damp and beads of sweat burst out on his forehead. For some reason, Krajcir had come back to the office and had brought another person with him. There were two of them, and he was trapped there.
7
A Dreadful Half-hour
Robbie’s heart missed a beat. Saliva suddenly ran hot in his mouth. Here was a premature and ignominious end to his activities as a secret agent. In a matter of moments, Krajcir would find him there and telephone for the police. He would be handcuffed, like any thief, and hauled off to the station. What would happen then? He had taken nothing, but there could be no disputing that he had broken in. How else could he have got there? Besides, they would discover that a pane had been removed from the window. It would be assumed that he had intended to burgle the place. What defence could he possibly offer? None. He would be sent to prison, have to mix with crooks and bullies, perform degrading tasks, suffer acute discomfort, live on revolting food, perhaps for several months, and for ever afterward be branded as a gaol-bird.
Stimulated by the shock of imminent discovery, his normally slow brain was whirling like a teetotum. Those appalling thoughts raced through it in a matter of seconds. Next moment, the impulse to escape such a fate automatically took charge. Any attempt to get out through the window must obviously fail. Long before he could possibly get it open and wriggle through it again, Krajcir would be upon him, seize him by the legs and haul him back. But there was the clothes closet.
With one sweep of his big hand, he swept the papers on which he had been working back into the folder, then thrust it into the drawer of the desk. Turning, he took two long strides on tiptoe, opened the closet door, slipped inside and pulled it to behind him.
He was only just in time. The door of the office opened as that of the closet swung to and, had the light been on, Krajcir must have caught sight of its movement. From fear that the sound of the door shutting would give him away, Robbie had not closed it completely. Next moment, through the two-inch gap that remained, he saw the light flash on, and heard the man who was with Krajcir ask:
‘Have you much for me this week?’
‘About the usual,’ Krajcir replied. ‘But there is nothing from Rhodes.’
The other grunted. ‘Our man there is in the Radar ship. Perhaps it has been moved or gone off on some exercise, so that he was prevented from getting ashore.’
‘Hello!’ Krajcir’s voice came again with a note of surprise. ‘What’s this?’
His companion gave an abrupt laugh. ‘A torch, and rather a nice one. But what about it?’
Robbie, still in a dither, was fighting to control his breathing. At the word ‘torch’, the sweat turned cold on his forehead. Of course; he had left his torch on Krajcir’s desk. He had not even had time to switch it off. Had it not been partly masked, and its beam dimmed by the strong electric light above the desk, they must have noticed it before. Now that they had, it was a complete give-away. They could not fail to realise that they had disturbed an intruder, and that he must be hiding somewhere close at hand. Certain now that his discovery was imminent, he wrung his big hands in an agony of apprehension, as he listened to the ensuing conversation.
‘But it’s not mine,’ Krajcir said in a puzzled voice.
‘Then it must belong to one of your staff.’
‘No, I’ll swear it wasn’t here when I left the office an hour ago. Besides, it’s still switched on. Someone must have broken in.’
‘The door was padlocked when we arrived and all the windows were closed, so no one could have.’
‘But how can one account, then, for a lighted torch being left on my desk?’
‘You probably switched it on yourself when you picked it up. Anyway it’s obvious that the safe has not been tampered with, and nothing else seems to have been disturbed. You are simply imagining things. One of your staff must have left it there, and you failed to notice it before. That’s all there is to it. ‘Now let’s get to work. I’m beginning to need my dinner.’
As Robbie breathed again, there came the clink of keys, then the sound of the heavy door of the safe being swung open. For a few minutes there was a rustling of papers, then Krajcir’s companion asked:
‘I take it you will have no difficulty in finding accommodation for Barak’s people?’
‘I don’t think so. Had it been later in the season I might have, but the tourist rush is some weeks from its peak yet. Anyhow, it is only a matter of fixing up the various groups for a couple of nights until they can move on to the villas and farmhouses we are taking for them. That reminds me, though. I meant to put in the safe the particulars Barak gave me, but it slipped my memory.’
‘They wouldn’t convey anything to your staff. Anyone who saw them would only take them for ordinary tourist bookings.’
‘That’s true. Even I have not been let into what it’s all about, and that’s none of my business. But Barak did stress to me that I was to treat the matter as top secret, so I may as well pop them in the safe while it is open.’
There came the sound of a drawer being pulled out, then a swift exclamation from Krajcir. ‘Devil take it! Somebody has been here.’
‘Are you sure? Has someone been at your papers?’ The other man’s voice now held quick concern.
‘Yes, look here. These are the notes I took from Barak, and someone has been making a copy of them. I know that round, childish hand. By God, I’ve got it! That’s the writing of the Englishman.’
‘What Englishman?’
‘The young fellow that Comrade Minister Havelka sent me.’
‘You mean the British Ambassador’s nephew?’
‘Yes. He’s quite useless. In fact he’s such a dreamer that I’m not quite sure that he’s all there. But I was ordered to give him a job.’
Even gripped as he was in an agony of apprehension, Robbie winced. He might be a bit slow at some things, but that did not justify anyone branding him as an idiot. Yet perhaps he was. Who but an idiot would have got himself involved in this sort of thing? And what a mess he had made of it. Not only had he left his torch behind, but also the notes he had taken—and they were in his writing, so he had given himself away completely.
‘He was enough “all there” to copy your papers,’ snapped Krajcir’s companion. ‘No doubt he only acted the part of a half-wit in order to lull any suspicions you might have of him.’
As Robbie had never acted any part, and was quite incapable of being anything but his ordinary, simple self, this brought him no consolation. Feeling as though he had the Sword of Damocles suspended above his head, he held his breath while waiting to learn what would happen next.
‘I was not warned that he might be a spy,’ Krajcir retorted angrily. ‘But why, having taken these notes, should he have left them here?’
‘Perhaps our arrival disturbed him.’
‘That’s it! His torch, left on the desk still alight! You must be right. And he couldn’t have got away. We should have seen or heard him.’
Robbie stiffened. Every muscle in his body became taut, like those of a condemned man awaiting immediate exec
ution. Next moment, the blow fell. Two swift steps sounded outside the cupboard door, then it was wrenched open.
For a few seconds Krajcir glared at him, then he snarled: ‘So, Mister Englishman; you are a spy, eh? How did you get in here?’
‘I—er—well, if you must know, through the window,’ Robbie admitted lamely.
‘You are in the British Secret Service, yes?’
‘No, oh no,’ Robbie swiftly protested. ‘I assure you, Pan Krajcir, that I’m not.’
‘Do not lie to me. You broke in here not to steal but to spy. We have evidence of it.’
‘Yes, I know: It was silly of me to leave my torch on your desk … and the notes I’d taken.’
Krajcir took a pace back, and said harshly: ‘Come out of there. You will sit down at my desk and write a full confession.’
This was something for which Robbie had not bargained. To be convicted was one thing, to confess was quite another. If he denied the charge, quite a lot of people might believe that the Czechs had used the fact that a young Englishman had taken a job with them to fake a charge against him, so that they could make anti-British propaganda out of the case. But to confess would give people no option about what to think. It would never be believed that he had gone into this on his own. They would take it as certain that his uncle had been behind the whole business, and lay the blame at his door for whatever happened to his nephew. Sir Finsterhorn had inspired no great devotion in Robbie but, all the same, he was not quite so simple as to fail to see the implications in this choice. Steeped as he was in the traditions of chivalry, since he had got himself into this mess nothing would have induced him to allow blame for it to be attributed to anyone else.
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